TribuneBusiN£$S'
to position :Africa for climatic changes By Sade Oguntola
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regional climate change. assessment of The one-year assessc lim ate ment, which is taking change impact on peri- place in nine cities across urban agriculture has Africa and South Asia, is commenced in West to include Tamale, Africa, East Africa, and Ibadan and Dakar in West South Asia with Ghana's Africa. It is supported by Minister of Environment, the University of Ghana Science and Technology, . and Global Change Mr Sherry Ayittey stating System for Analysis, the assessment was Research & Training important to position the (START) in partnership the World 'sub-region to adapt to with
Met e 0 r 0 log i c a' I Organisation (WMO), Intergoverrimental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Commission. Mr Ayittey, speaking through Mr Rudolph Kuuzegh, Secretary to the National Climate Change Coinmittee, Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology in Ghana, said climatic changes had big
implications on livelihood in urban areas now that many food and agricultural products consumed in cities now come from within these cities and their suburbs. According ': to him, "many people have not taken the pain to access what is happening to urban agriculture . So, this assessment would help to understand what other countries are doing, especially in research and knowledge
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·From Left, Acting Director, Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (lESS), University of Ghana, Professor Chris Gordon; Dr Jon Padgham; Ghana's Secretary to the Climate Change Committee, Mr. Rudolpll Kuuzegh and European Union representative, Jannik Vaa, at a forum on regional assessment of climate change in Ghana, recently.
Dollar strengthens against euro on Bernanke's 'flat'Ion comments .1 In
~doUaradvanced :frainst the euro af . ter Federal Reserve ChaIrman, . Be n . S. Bernanke saId InflatIOn mu s t be watched "ex" . '(reme Iy cIose Iy, spurnng b t th t ' t t t e s . a ill eres ra esmay b~ raIsed sooner than prevlOuslyexpected. The U.S. currency appreclat~d agaInst most of Its ma)?r counterparts. Fedpohcymakeclmould "have to respond" . shOUld. esllma tes that faster InflatIOn WIll be transitory prove incorrect, Bernanke said in
Stone Mountain, Georgia, late yesterday. The euro also weakened after Mpody's Investors Service lowered Portugal's long-term credit rating by one step to Baal The pound t ' d s treng th ene AS a repor showed services industries expanded more than forecast in March. "Ber,nanke's comments suggest that the market might be underestimating the degree to which the Fed could tighten monetary policy and that sets the scene for " a narrow d 0 II ar ra II y, 'd Le H d 5,11 e ar man, a curr:ncy strategist at Bank of P2Q,pmd
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Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Fed's rhetoric towards a Ltd. in London. "Europe's slig htl y le ss-dovis h debt crisis is far from be- stance, although the . h ' . h Ing resolved and t at s market mIg t be overreth th t uld tin t 't b't " ano er reason a co ac g 0 I a I . push euro-dollar lower." Japan's yen weakThe dollar appreciated ened against the dollar as much as 0.4 per cent to on speculation the $1.4170 per euro and nation 's central bank traded 0.3 per cent stron- will provide monetary ger at $1.4181 early accommodation to d d ' db' db We nes ay In Lon on. USInesses ravage ya The Japanese yen weak- March 11 earthquake. ened 0.3 per cent to 84.27 The Bank of Japan is per dollar and traded little considering offering h d . c ange at 119.50 per temporary loans to euro. banks to aid companies Bernanke'-g comments with cash-flow shortechoed his March 1 state- ages following the temment to lawmakers that blor, people familiar Fed officials were " pre- with the matter said. pared to .r espond as necThe plan may be pre' essa ry" to inflationary sented to the BOJ board pressures. The policy- as early as this month, setting Federal Open Market Committee, led by Bernanke, said March 15 it "will pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations." "The dollar is doing well on the back of rate hike expectations," said Ch ' W lk rlS a er, a currency strategist at UBS AG in London. " Berna nke 's comments indicate a subtle change in the
site dir ec tion," said Daisuke Karakama, a market economist in Tokyo at Mlzuho Co,~ por~te Bank Ltd. , I don t see any reason to b h " uy t e yen. Th F d 'll t d e e . WI 0 ~y release mInutes . of Its Ma~ch 15 meellng at w~lch poltcy makers saId the ;::5. eco~omlc recovery IS on a fumer fOOlIng ." A separate report today is forecast . by econo.m lsts to sh~w U,S ' sebrlvlces Industnes pro b a y grew at near the fastest pace in . more than ftve ye~rs. The U .S . Inslltute for S,upyly Management s Index of nonmanufaCturing businesses probably reached 59 .5 in March 'from 59 .7 the previous month, which was the
the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discus- highest since August sions weren't public. The 2005, according to a central bank wiIl keep its Bloomberg survey of target rate on hold in a 68 economists. A read, range of zero to 0,1 per ing above 50 indicates ce nt on April 7, a groTwheth · ed has kept l'tS F BI b oom erg suryey ' benchmark interest showed , "The Fed WI' II be rate close to zero since December 2008 and last. catching up with the month rel'terated I' t ECB ' .. . t t In raIsIng In eres would remain there for rates, while the BOJ'is heading in the oppo- an "extended period."
that would b enefit adaptation planning with respect to urban food production." The miili;teF, ,._who stated that Ghana' was putting in place a national climatic change policy framework in response to climatic' cha nge, declared that from experience of Ghana, climatic change was real. According to him, IIWe see it in vario us sectors like agriculture, energy and so on. In a study on the economics of adaptation in four sectors that was conducted with support from World Bank, an additional cost to the national budget attributed to climatic change on a yearly basis was close to about 10 per cen!." European Union representative, Jannik Va a, who declared the need to inform the global community of the reality of climatic changes, said the assessment wou ld add up to the body of knowledge on the link between rapid urbanisation, food security and increased risk of climatic changes. Mr Vaa, stating that climatic change was a threat to development, urged African scientists to maintain a shared vision on urban agriculture and climate change and ensure that climate change mitigating and adaptation efforts integrate into them poverty reductions strategies and plans. The EU representative remarked that African countries needed to have a strategic framework to guide and prevent donor communities from inu ndating them with array of projects on climatic ch ange mitigation and adaptation projects which may not be entirely useful. Acting Director, institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (lESS), University of Ghana, Professor Chris Gordon said progressively changing natural systems such as . the increasing atmospheric temperature, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns and increasing' cases of unpredictable and intense storm events had made
people more vulnerable to adversity. According to Professor Gordon, "some of these farmers engaged in peri-urban agriculture are at the extreme and abject level of poverty and with any small push , the y fall further down the poverty ladder." Professor Gordon remarked that in several cities, up to 80 per cent of fresh food consumed by the inhabitants of the city came from periurban farmers and so if climatic change affected their productivity, whether through the environment or through their changing health conditions, food security was jeopardised. He noted that African countries must b e proactiv e on issues of climatic changes, stressing that" Africa is the only continent where the overall food security has dropped since 1970 till date and if we continue to fo ld our hands and kee p living on imp orted cerea ls, eating foods we do not know h ow they were made, then we wou ld have our probl e ms compounded for ever." According to him, "looking at different climatic change predictions, by year 2080, Ghana will no longer be able to grow cocoa in commercial quantity, the conditions would have changed in terms of soil moisture, rainfall patterns, air temperatures. Certainly, development of new varieties takes years and so Ghana may be in a situation w here its main
import earner may just varnish. " Professor Gordon, who n oted that there was little many African countries could do to mitigate effects of climatic changes because of its low contri buti on to • emissions, emph asised the need to build resilience of Africans and reduce their vulnerability to climatic cha nges through s uch stra tegie s as more efficient use of water, land, tr ansportation systems and lesser use of agro chemicals as well as development of new varieties of ~ r ops that cope bett e r wi th new climatic conditions.